Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-12-03

used by the ancient Mexicans for spear
heads, knives, etc.-thus showing that the
Mound Builders must have had some con-
nection with Mexico, if they did not act
ually come from there, since the product
is found in its natural state nowhere nearer
the Mississippi valley that the Mexican
mountains of Cerro Gordo.
There are evidences also that they pos
sessed the art of spinning and weaving,
which was unknown to the Indians of the
North, but practiced many centuries ago
by those of Mexico and the West Indies.
1t would seem that when these Mound
Builders were driven from their own coun-
try they took southerly direction, and
after long wandering, arrived in Mexico
at least ,255 years ago; and many believe
that in performing this southwark migfa-
ton they were only returning to the land
from which their ancestors had strayed in
the earliest years.
At any rate, from out the darkness of |
the past they suddenly came into Mexico, |
and finally settled at Tollantzingo in the |
year 700, where they founded the city of
lula. Historians tell US that lula al |
itai, under the name of Manheni, and that
the Toltecs merely repaired and renamed
it. Be that as it may, the scattered line
of eartirwalled houses occupying the ridge
of hills on the northern edge Of the Next
can valley, overlooking the Rio lula, re-
| mains to show where stood the ancient
capital of the Toltec empire.
The Toltec monarchy in Mexico COM
L A II nodF llolo
| the year 1000, each monarch reigning
fiEty-two years Or if he died before thas
| time his successor was not appointed until
the cycle was completed. They seem TO
| have favored the arts of peace more than
| higher grade than that of any nation that
wonderful canendas system which was long
struction of which must have required q
perfect knowledge of astronomy.
The historian Clavigero says that in the
year go they assembled all their wise
men, prophets and astrologers, and painted
a great book, which they called "Teoa-
moxtli, or Divine Book"-the Toltec
Bible In this sacred work was not only
represented the origin of the Indians, but,
strangely enough, the confusion of tongues
at the building of the Tower of Babel and
the eclipse of the sun which occurred at
the death of Christ, as well as numerous
prophesies concerning the future of their
own empire.
1t was somewhere in the tenth century,
during the reign of Topiltzin, the eighth
sovereign, that the Toltec Empire began
to weaken. 1t is said to have come about
through the love of the Emperor for strong
drink-so, in the interest of prohibition,
let us point the moral by repeating the
tale. The legend runs that one Of the
| 1oltec nobles Papantzin, succeeded in in
venting delicious drink from the maguey
plant-supposed to be the identical pulque
of to-day. Wishing to bring the new
beverage into royal favor, he sent his only
daughter Xochitl, "The Flower of Tollen"
as cup-bearer to the King. Xochitl
| pronounced Hoe-cheat-lD was very beau
tiful, and SO pleased was old Topiltzin,
that, after he had guzzled an inordinate
amount of her fathers pulque, he caused
the youthful Hebe to be shut up in his
palace, where he kept her a prisoner for
many years.
| So 1t happened that civil wars arose, to
which famine and pestilence were added,
and by the middle of the eleventh century
the great Toltec empire had persisted from
the earth. The famished and plague
stricken people, believing lula accursed
by the gods, deserted their capital and
scattered to the southwark over wide ex-
panse of territory. But it was only as a
nation that they disappeared, for many of
them continued to live in the country and
exerted an important interest upon the
various tribes that later invaded the valley
of Mexico.
After the scattering of the Toltecs, about
fifty years elapsed before the territory was
invaded by another powerful tribe. These
were the Chichimses said by some historians
to be the oldest nation in Mexico-proba-
bly, because the name, Chichimse, was APP
piled to all unknown tribes. At one time
they were barbarous people, wandering
naked in the mountains. They were not
famous for conqueSts, but took possession
of all territory they found unoccupied. In
course of time they became civilized and
established monarchy which counted
fourteen kings and continued four hundred
years, from the year 1120 to the coming of
the Spaniards in 1920.
: 1t did not take long for the vagabond
Chichimses, prowling around the borders
OF Iollen, to discover that something had
happened in lula; so they sent scouts
into the Toltec territory, who returned
with the astonishing information that the
city was deserted and the nation gone. So
they cautiously advanced into the land of
their once powerful foes, who had ranked
so high above them in the arts of civiliza-
ton, and finding the magnificent temples
and palaces of lula entirely empty, they
took possession of it, unmindful of the
wrathful gods.
At various periods during the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, different tribes
came struggling into the Valley of Mexico.
, The most powerful of these were the Ma
huetlacas Children of the SUM-" who
came from the land of Aztlan. There
were seven tribes of them-the Mexicans,
Tlascallans, Colhuas, Tlahuicas, Chalchese.
Tepanecas and Sochinilcas Where was
Aztlan, the country of herons," nobody
knows. Various writers have assigned
them to as many localities, ranging ali the
way from the Gulf of California to the
Gulf of Mexico. Certainly it was north
ward from lula; but, for good reasons it
is believed by many that, like the Toltecs.
the home of their ancestors, perhaps ages
before had been in the far south.
About the year 1196 they reached lula.
this city which the Toltecs had abandoned
one hundred and fifty years before; and
here they tarried nine years. From this
race-the Nahuatlacas, sprang the Aztecs.
or early Mexicans, the name being derived
from their birthplace, the unknown Aztlan.
FANNIE B. WARD.